Little Simz: I don’t have to be harder, I just have to be myself

Keeping it real: Little Simz is heading for the top after getting the seal of approval from rap royalty such as Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar (Picture: Daniel Hambury) Daniel Hambury

Simbi Ajikawo is popular. Not top-of-the-hit-parade popular — that may come later this year. But when we meet, the Highbury hip hop artist who trades as Little Simz is simply the most in-demand person in the backstage area of Hackney’s Lovebox festival. Just 10 minutes after bustling on to the site, and an hour before she’s due to rap on stage at the BBC Radio 1Xtra tent, everybody within a 50ft radius wants to say hi. In between hugs and handshakes, the smashed face of her phone pings with messages. She’s so distracted that five minutes after I bid farewell, I doubt she could pick me out of a police line-up.

But it’s still worth trying to grab a moment of her precious time, for the musician everyone calls Simz is fast on the rise. A succession of online mixtapes — one of which was given the Jay-Z seal of approval when it was premiered on his Life + Times blog — have built anticipation for a debut album proper, due at the end of the summer. “It’s more like a real body of work than a project with singles on it,” she says, stressing that the album is a major step on from her online releases. “It’s a concept album with a theme behind it. It’s definitely my best work to date. I challenged myself a lot.”

Last autumn, the 21-year-old received two Mobo nominations, for Best Newcomer and Best Hip Hop Act. In the latter category she was the only woman. At an imminent Prom organised by 1Xtra, her first visit to the Albert Hall, she will again be the only woman rapping with an orchestra alongside the likes of Wretch 32, Lethal Bizzle and Skepta. It’s a familiar situation. “Yeah, I’m definitely getting used to it. It’s cool, I don’t mind it,” she tells me. “I just have to represent for my females.”

She disputes any idea that she might need to amplify either her aggression or sexiness to stand out in a world dominated by alpha males, as some have done before her. “I don’t have to be harder, I just have to be myself. That’s all I’ve been doing to get me to this point so far. The industry wants to change you and says, for a girl especially, you have to be oversexy, be super-aggressive to fit in with the guys. Really and truly, if you be yourself, people will accept you for that.”

She dresses plainly, thin as a Biro in skinny jeans, sports tops and caps. Her rapping style, too, is thoughtful and smooth-flowing. She’s a fast talker but rarely raises her voice, backed by slowly drifting electronic washes and sleepy beats. It’s not grime, though she gets spoken of in the same breath as the bolshier London rappers. She’d rather be called a lyricist than a rapper, anyway. For inspiration she looked to American stars such as Lauryn Hill and Missy Elliott as a child, but today she is also influenced by Jay-Z, Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar. Lamar became the latest big name to single her out for praise last month, saying on MistaJam’s Radio 1 show: “She might be one of the illest doing it right now.”

She stays remarkably cool about having her illness levels noted by a California rapper whose latest album was a US and UK No 1. “I met Kendrick a year ago and he had expressed this to me already. So to the world it’s new, but to me it’s not. But for him to come out on the radio and say Simz is someone you should look out for, I appreciate that so much.”

Simz is still some way from his status, but is relaxed about that, too. “Getting in the charts isn’t the end goal for me,” she says. “I just want to get it out to the masses and for everybody to hear my story. When that happens, I’ve already won.” You’ll barely see her name in the iTunes store or on Spotify at the moment. You need to head to the Bandcamp site, where she has eight different collections available to download on a pay-what-you-like basis. Among them are four different “Drops” she calls Age 101, the Jay-Z-approved Blank Canvas collection from 2013, and an EP by her four-strong group, Space Age. It’s all strong stuff, consistently of a high quality and well worth digging into.

“I think I built loyalty,” she says of putting out so much music before a real album. “Surprisingly, a lot of people have been more than willing to pay for it. I think more people have bought it than downloaded it for free. The most that someone paid is something like 40 to 50 pounds, which is absurd to me. But it goes to show that my music is worth something.”

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She’s doing this without the support of a big record label, too. Like fellow rapid riser Stormzy, she’s staying unsigned to put out her new music. “Every time I tell someone I’m not signed they’re shocked, like, ‘How can you be doing all this?’ For the longest time I was that person who wanted to be signed to a major label, thinking that without them this is not gong to happen. I have to do more work, but I like that. By keeping it small, our dreams and ambitions are more realistic. We don’t need so many people in the picture, butting heads all the time.”

She’s had plenty of time to consider her options, having begun rapping when she was just a nine-year-old. “I was just an excited kid who was always jumping around and wanted to be involved in performing arts as a whole.” She attended the Islington youth club, St Mary’s, which the local paper describes as an “Upper Street talent factory” that has also seen the singers Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke pass through its doors. Her sister started her own acting agency and began putting her up for roles, though acting is on the back-burner these days. You may recognise her from the 2013 E4 series Youngers.

Now she’s the last sibling still living at home, along with two Albanian teenagers in the charge of her mother, a foster carer. It sounds like an encouraging upbringing, despite the lack of a father figure. On song No Introduction she raps: “My daddy weren’t around, what a wicked man/If I ever see that nigga, I’ll give him the middle finger.” Of the set-up at home today, she says: “I like that the boys see me travelling, doing good things. It can inspire them.”

It all helps to keep her ego in check. “The one thing I am is humble. This is not the be-all and end-all. I still have a lot of work to do and that’s what keeps me grounded.” Grounded, maybe, but definitely on the way up.